Wow, thanks for sharing! That does look great!

I am rethinking the knobs. I can see some advantages to the chicken beaks for visual reference. I will install the gold knobs when they arrive, and I may try some beaks in black.

I am almost positive this is where I will end up as well, Lon. I think the only issue will be whether I like the black or cream-colored better.

Juan, my bases are all cherry.

Hey Juan, what's this "sleep" you speak of? I agree about the walnut and maple. Never been a big walnut fan, but it is one of those classic American crafting woods. Maple is great for some stuff. But I already have a lot of light and dark cherry in my home, and so the cherry made sense here. it is lighter than most of my other finishes, but Bob says it will darken a bit over time. Right now, tube glow overshadows wood.

The Leben and AKG cans should be a great combo. I think the Leben is even harder to get than Decware equipment. At the office, I decided to keep the Cavalli Liquid Fire and my Audez'e LCD-2s. I am taking the Taboo home for my headphone listening there. It will physically fit the space I have for it better than the LF. It is just about impossible to pick the better amp between the two. I still like the Taboo overall better, but it is fully broken in, and I am not sure about the LF yet. In certain bass segments, it has a tendency toward what i would call "tubbiness." Not flabby or fat, just tubby. Tube rolling is not impossible in the LF, but it is an enclosed case, and you do have to take it off in order to swap the tubes. I suspect some tube rolling could improve an amazing amp even further.

Juan, the sleep comment was just making fun. I mean, who sleeps these days?

You are correc that being in the US makes it much easier and more affordable to get Decware. But it can still be a long wait.

Let us know how that Leben sounds with the AKG cans.

Here are the two items I bought to enable full use of the Ultra as a preamp front end for my HT system. Note that these would NOT be necessary if you use the Ultra only as a front end for an HT and one or two other 2-channel sources. (Steve, if you found some other way to solve this, please let me know.) But I have two other sources (HD cable and Apple TV) that have 5.1audio worth putting through the Decware system. Yes, I could run their HDMI outputs straight into the Panasonic flat panel, but the sound coming out of flat panels generally, and the Pannys specifically, is so atrocious, and it seems quite a waste to have this sort of audio system and not get the full benefit of it.

Note also that, if any one of your sources, be it the DVD, Blu-Ray, or something else, also has control center input capabilities, you might not need this adaptation. I bought two items from HDTV Supply:

1. A 2x1 5.1 channel switcher. A 3.1 would have been more convenient, but it's not mandatory. Depending on physical layout and cabling, This will permit me to have two 5.1 sources running into the Ultra. When and if I decide to add a third, I will get one more of these. Biggest downside of these: no IR remote control. I have looked all over for one with IR, asked the vendors, etc. No luck.

2. A 4x2 HDMI-7.2 matrix switcher. This is what lets me separate the 5.1 audio channels from the HDMI supplied by the Cable and the ATV. Note that it is possible that this unit will be all I need. The folks on the phone and email—who were all great, BTW; HDTV definitely has my business for the future—sent me the user manual, and walked through it with me. We think it might be possible to plug the Blu-Ray audio out into the 4x2, along with the HDMI from the cable and the ATV. If that works, I am set, an I have remote control.

Granted, this won't be quite as automatic as the current Denon system, because everything there is remote controllable. It's pretty cool to touch one rectangle on the Harmony remote control screen, and everything turns on and is ready ro go. But quality has its price, eh?

Let me know if you have any questions. (NOTE: cross-posted in ERR forum as well. Hope that's okay.)

I posted something over in the ERR forum that probably belongs here:

Michael, thanks for the suggestion. I will check it out, but if I remember correctly, Outlaw doesn't disable the preamp segment, though, do they?

Anyway, the problem is two-fold: (1) the Ultra only has one set of 5.1 inputs, or inputs that accommodate all 6 audio channels of a surround system; and (2) an increasing number of A/V sources deliver hifh quality video signal through HDMI, while the component outputs often do not deliver as good a video signal (my Comcast/Motorola PVR, for example), and even if they do, the audio is typically 2-channel.

Thr Ultra is well designed for a single 5.1 front end, such as a Blu-Ray, plus three other 2-channel sources. The mixing capabilities provide ample redirection capabilities for putting that two-channel signal wherever you want it. But it's not the same as having multiple 5.1 or even HDMI inputs. In my system, I have the Blu-Ray player, which has a 5.1/7.1 and a 2.0 output, and I have the cable PVR and Apple TV. So, I need to get all those signals into the Ultra (or the Blu-Ray player, though the Oppo has no device switching capabilities).

The 4x2 HDMI matrix switcher seems to do a good job of extracting the 5.1 signals, though there is a bit of brittleness to the sound (which could all be from the source device).

The only problem I am now having is getting the Center channel to perform correctly. Even with a 5.1 signal, the only way I can get the Ultra to send out a signal is to flip the Norm/Mixed switch to Mixed. I turned out at first to have a bum (non-Decware) cable. Replacing that solved the zero output problem. But I am still not getting quite what I expect. I will get that one figured out or I will ring up Steve. It should be easy to test: pull the Matrix and input the Oppo directly to the Ultra.

Why not use the 2807?
I realize you probably don't want to run your m/ch sources through it, kinda defeats the purpose for having the Ultra, but I can't see how it would be any worse than sending them through a switching device.

Lin